Government

The Lebanon Police department will soon be understaffed, but Police Chief Wally Brady wants people to know that the streets will still be covered.
Brady addressed the Lebanon City Council on Monday, Nov. 7, to report on the current staffing issues with the department.
“I was in service training last week with 100 chiefs across the state of Kentucky,” Brady said, “and all the police departments across the state of Kentucky are dealing with the same situation that we’re dealing with.”

The voters have spoken.
Fifty-four percent of Marion County voters cast ballots in favor of the recallable nickel during the 2016 General Election on Tuesday, Nov. 8. A total of 4,206 people voted for the nickel, while 3,563 voted against it. This is in sharp contrast to eight years ago, when the majority of voters (58.2 percent) voted against the nickel.
With the additional funds from the recallable nickel, plus matching state funds, the Marion County Public School System will have approximately $30 million that can only be used to build or renovate facilities.

This is Terry Mills’ sixth election. His formula for winning? Doing the same thing he’s always done.
“I talk about what I believe and who I am and what I want to do,” he said. “I don’t focus that much on the opponent.”
That kind of thinking is in stark contrast to many political philosophies, particularly on the national stage. However, Mills has deep convictions about the things he aims to accomplish, and he’s proud of all the things he’s gotten to do so far. However, he is no stranger to public attacks.

Brandon Reed wants to shake things up if he gets elected as the state representative of the 24th district.
With him comes a plethora of conservative views that fall right in line with many conventional Republicans, but his reasoning for getting into politics in the first place is anything but conventional.

It’s election season so that means candidates are scrambling to be heard by any means possible. One of the hotly contested races this year is the United States Senate seat currently held by Senator Rand Paul.
Paul’s opposition is Jim Gray.
Gray is the current Mayor of Lexington and has been in office since 2011. He was raised in Glasgow, Kentucky and is proud of the fact that he is a seventh-generation Kentuckian.

The Lebanon City Council held a special called meeting on Monday to discuss the bids for construction of the new city hall.

There was little discussion before the council voted to approve the lowest bid, which went to Isaac Tatum Construction. At $4.38 million, the project will cost about $1 million more than previously expected by architects from Murphy+Graves+Trimble, PLLC (MGT).
Lead architect TimMurphy said he didn’t foresee any big variations in the costs.

Four bids were submitted for the construction of a new city hall in Lebanon, but none of them were within the city’s estimated price range.
According to City Administrator John Thomas, the architects and committee had estimated the cost to be a little more than $3 million. The lowest bid, which was submitted by Isaac Tatum Construction, was $4,380,000. The other bids ranged from around $4.5 million to nearly $5 million.
Thomas said the city hall committee will have to meet again to discuss what needs to be done next.

After a shocking revelation last month that the new multipurpose facility could cost upwards of $25 million, the committee in charge of the project has decided to go a different route.
The Multipurpose Facility Committee met again on Sept. 13 to discuss the new plans.